Rapid fire responses to common finale criticisms from someone who actually paid attention to the final episode:
“The finale left so many plot holes!” Not really? A finale isn’t always going to answer every single thing that happens in a show, it’s gonna leave you with things to consider.
“What about this miscellaneous tiny detail?” So what? Not every single thing is important.
“But they said no coincidences!” Specifically in regard to the date everything happened. If this line had deeper implications it would have been cool but the main reason this was said was because of the date in the show, every other coincidence was very much us reading too far into things. The cold air comment, the miscolored set piece, the other clues found would have been really cool with a payoff but at the same time some things are just that: things.
“It was queerbait!” No it wasn’t? No advertising was based on the potential of a queer relationship between Mike and Will. The duffer brothers didn’t confirm or deny the ship happening because they didn’t want to spoil the show. Also you cannot blame them for not spoiling that it wasn’t gonna happen because they never told us that byler was an endgame option. It was one sided attraction, that happens all the time. Hell, we literally see it with other characters in the show. Please see: Steve and Robin in season 3. Plus, it would have made no narrative sense if Mike and El broke up only for Mike to get with Will. It would have been rushed and honestly would have ruined Mike’s character while simultaneously reducing Will to nothing more than a final act romance.
“What about Vickie!” Robin hinted they broke up because she was overbearing. Also she wasn’t an MC, sometimes people just break up.
“How did Max graduate?” Fictional story, let her be happy. Also the whole town went through insane circumstances, it is entirely unsurprising they would give her a free pass through the time she missed, we saw a very similar thing happen with students during covid. Also y’all aren’t considering she may have tested out of what she missed because she’s smart as hell and they therefore let her graduate on time.
“It was all a campaign we see it at the end!” It was a fucking end credits image referencing dungeons and dragons.
“The fires from the end of s4 meant nothing.” So they were covered by the giant slabs of metal a the town was put onset heavy military surveillance and the presence of this shaped the entire season. But sure, it meant nothing.
“It glorified suicide!” Gang are we being so for real, this is a sci fi horror tv show. Characters get self sacrificial in this genre all the goddamn time. We see it in like every dramatic universe, especially dnd related media. Also, that fact that El survived (because it’s so clear she survived Jinx from Arcane style) AND got to keep her powers (whether or not she uses them again) is so rare gang. She is safe and happy in Iceland and that’s so rare for powerful women in media. Also it’s not an insane ending for her. The military would have continued hunting her for the rest of her life if she stayed on the grid, death or running was her only option.
“The final battle ended too fast.” They spent the entire show building up to this, these guys came prepared. Drawing it out would have made the show go so slow. Also, might be my nerdy dnd loving ass, but if you’ve ever watched dnd combat those things take hours to play out but in actuality the fights themselves take max 5 minutes in real time. Each combat round is 6 seconds of real time so 10 rounds is only a minute in the real world. The quick battle in my mind was totally a reference to multiple hours of turn based combat paying off as though this were a dnd campaign but that could just be me. Over all, it was a badass fight and I think saying it ended too fast is the biggest nit pick of the century.
“The ending was mediocre” that one I’ll give you. There are a million ways the finale could have been deeper, better, whatever but it’s not an awful ending can we please be happy with what we have?
That didn’t bury their gays, they didn’t unnecessarily kill their characters, no one got a stupid boring ending, the group didn’t break up, it had such cool dnd references, and hell the ending was cute. Can we all just be happy the show got a decent ending and not a stupid “it was all a dream” or “almost everyone died and the people who lived were unhappy” ending?
It’s not the world’s greatest finale but it’s far FAR from the worst thing ever made and I feel like people are hating unnecessarily
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
